1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to ligament anchor systems and devices for use in surgical procedures for the repair or replacement of a ligament and in particular to a male connector that incorporates a ligament mount or fixator for maintaining a ligament thereto with the male connector for coupling into a female connector seated in a bone tunnel, thereby mounting the ligament in that bone tunnel.
2. Prior Art
In the discipline of arthoscopic surgery, for a ligament replacement procedure, a surgeon will form a tunnel into or through a bone that is to receive a ligament graft maintained therein. For such ligament graft mounting, a ligament graft end has heretofore been connected, as by sewing it to a rear end of a male connector whose forward end is arranged for fitting into a female coupling that has been secured in the ligament tunnel, or the ligament graft has been fitted through and looped over an open fixator end of a male connector that is then fitted into a female coupling. Which male and female connectors to join together, completing the endosteal mounting. An earlier U.S. patent of one of the inventors, U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,957, shows an example of such arrangement that utilizes male and female connectors, with the female connector, like that preferred for the invention, having a threaded outer surface that is for turning into a prepared ligament tunnel. With the male connector, at its end opposite to its ligament mounting end, including, in one embodiment, a spring collet that is for fitting into a longitudinal opening formed through the female connector, exiting the female connector open end. In practice, shown in the '957 patent, with passage of the male member into the opening, the collet lip end will flex outwardly across an edge of the female connector opening proximal end, thereby locking the male to the female member. In another embodiment of the invention, the male member includes an open eyelet distal end that is used for maintaining a ligament graft thereto and employs, as its coupling end, a circular groove formed therein back from a sloping end to fitting into to receive a cross wire seated in the female member that flexes into the groove, prohibiting withdrawal of the male member.
Additional to the above cited earlier U.S. patent of one of the inventors, U.S. Pat. No.'s 4,772,286 , that is also set out in Re. 34,293 ; No. 4,997,433; and 5,129,902, and in a U.S. patent to Jenkins, Jr. No. U.S. Pat. No. 5,571,139 , that also show endosteal mounting arrangements and provide for connecting to a natural or prosthetic ligament, or to sutures, with each such device to function as a mounting. Such couplings of a ligament graft end sutures to a connector, or to a connector element of these prior patents are, however, unlike the fixator arrangement of the present invention in that they do not employ the coupling arrangement of either of the embodiments of the invention. Similarly, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,744,793; 4,784,126; 5,100,417 and 5,152,790, show bone tunnel mountings that also provide for coupling to a ligament graft end, sutures or the like, but do not employ a ligament graft fixator arrangement that is like that of the present invention.